Route reliability record
DEN→CLE
Denver to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,842
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,201 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,842 DEN to CLE flights, of which United Airlines flew 941 at 81.0% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.7%, against 75.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,831 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.33%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
81.0% on time across 941 flights
These figures cover 1,842 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CLE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 62.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 605 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 296 | 84.1% | 49 min | 1.01% | B |
| United Airlines | 941 | 81.0% | 65 min | 0.11% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 605 | 62.6% | 55 min | 0.33% | D+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 18 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 18 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to CLE
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Cleveland
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → CLEDenver to Cleveland | United Airlines | 80.9% | 81.0% | 0.11% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
| 2. DEN → CLEDenver to Cleveland | Southwest Airlines | 62.4% | 62.6% | 0.33% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am143 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am563 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm238 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm223 flights81.4%
- 5pm–8pm623 flights61.4%
- 8pm–5am52 flights61.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.4% on time, against 90.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 623 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 65.6% on time, 22 points below November, the best at 87.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.7%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 26,255 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.33%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,201 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.0% on time across 1,840 flights, 7 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,842 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 87.6% on time and July 65.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,831 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to CLE questions
How often is DEN to CLE delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.5% of the 1,842 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CLE?
United Airlines leads at 81.0% on time across 941 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 62.6%, a gap of 18 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.4%, 29 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on DEN to CLE?
July is the weakest month at 65.6% on time, compared with 87.6% in November. Across the year that is 22 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to CLE84.1%
- United Airlines on DEN to CLE81.0%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to CLE62.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.1%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record84.1%
- United Airlines on-time record81.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record62.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DEN to CLE and CLE to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.